I think you've got it there. Pundits don't like smarter and more cerebral politicians than themselves, witness Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. OTOH they are impressed by a certain (ex-)cigarette smoking politician's Rat Pack cool and charm.

Carrie Nation.

I think this is a case of a privileged young man refusing to see the extent to which this country is mired in the corruption of privilege.

No matter what other factors people can piont to, it's almost impossible to deny that the net effect of the press's actions is to give powerful, connected Republicans good coverage and a pass for every scandal. At the same time, no amount of jocular, folksy ways will protect a Democrat. Just look at Bill Clinton.

What very few (male) reporters feel comfortable with is their personal physical courage. Their ability to fare well in a bar fight, or make a credible threat to someone stalking their wife, or endure five years of torture in a Vietnamese prison camp.

That nails it. Think of it. A lot of the reporters covering the campaigns are really cowards. Look at Tweety(or Candy Crowley or John King the other night thinking he had tripped up Obama, only to be made a fool of). These people project so much, it is so sad. What Ezra didn't mention but what has been mentioned before is that McCain is always available to the TradMed. If Tweety(Or Teh Big Punkinhead) calls McCain's office, he'll return their calls ASAP. The TradMed likes feeling important and McCain gives them that feeling.

Are you serious? Journalism in the United States is the province of the sort of second-string nobodies who hung around the popular kids at high school, desperate to get their attention?

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but ye gods.

A similar dynamic is at work with Bush-- his lazy anti-intellectual attitude as a path to success via his social class is something that reporters don't have but likely admire.

The sad part is that you'd have thought reporters were self-confident investigators. It turns out that they're just groupies. I guess when you think about it, though, being a washington reporter is the fastest and easiest way to live and work in proximity to "the beautiful people."

Yet nothing Gore could have done would have saved him from a press that loathed him for being smarter than they.

And schwa, that is exactly the truth.

The press is full of smart, cerebral people? Like Maureen Dowd?

The press is full of extremely average people. Smart people go into careers where the starting salary isn't $20K. Very dumb people can't string together sentences and they get weeded out. What's left is very, very average in intelligence, and generally have meek personas. The people who get ahead in the media industry aren't the ones who write the best, they're the ones with good connections (Bill Kristol wasn't hired at the NYT because he was the best op-ed writer available) and the ones who can suck up to their bosses (everything you do is directly judged by your boss - more so than in almost any other job).

So: meek suckups with average IQ at best. Investigative, bright, abrasive people - the conventional journalist stereotypes - are strongly discouraged in the industry.

McCain is a good people-person who isn't too bright, so he meshes very well with the press.

Anxious masculinity..classic.
[q.v. any of the feminist voices,
Pandagon come to mind.]

Schwa, are you telling us you've never read the Incomparable Archives at http://dailyhowler.com/?

NOBODY details the infantile, high-school cliquishness of the press corps the way Bob Somerby does. You want to know what the press is doing, you need to keep up with Somerby.

Smart people go into careers where the starting salary isn't $20K.

I love America. One of the few places where otherwise literate people would think, "you work at a job where the starting salary is high. You must be a genius!" makes any sense at all. All those physicists and biologists? Morons.

Newsweek's interview with Paul Waldman is informative on this subject.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/114548

Why is that? Is it just that he's a likable 'straight talker'? Or are we all suckers? It's both. You have to understand that the way McCain deals with the national media is a strategy. He realized that reporters want to be treated differently than the way most politicians treat them, which is very carefully and being measured with what they say, going off the record a lot. And that's frustrating for reporters. What McCain figured out was not to be careful, not to go off the record, to return their calls and talk about anything for as long as they wanted. And the results have paid off very handsomely for him, because he gets the benefit of the doubt all the time.

"What very few (male) reporters feel comfortable with is their personal physical courage. Their ability to fare well in a bar fight, or make a credible threat to someone stalking their wife, "

Not to get too meta but this is second order projection from the media. John McCain by all reports cannot lift his arms above his shoulders, he cannot comb his own hair, his chances of "personally beat the shit out of you" against anyone over the age of fourteen are kind of limited. That the media is be besotted by this guy that they buy into this line illustrates the nature of the problem.

This isn't a question of courage or guts, but it is a question of bluster and bullshit. Anyone who is authentically physically intimidated by John McCain wouldn't last ten minutes in a blue collar bar, the regulars would sense the weakness. I respect McCain's feistiness, just as I respected that of Old Texas Don (before he got 86'd last week for just being too onery), but Don was 82 and moving kinda slow even when he wasn't drunk (which was rare) and even a skinny guy like me could take him. But of course in the real world it rarely comes to that, as long as you keep up the appropriate front and push back as necessary the bullies will back off, generally speaking the cost of beating the snot out of someone like me (like jail time) makes the actual initial satisfaction not worth it. A fact implicitly recognized by all concerned. That the Beltway Press is so weeny as to be impressed by McCain's line of machismo bullshit in the face of the actual empirical evidence of his age and his physical condition tells me more than I want to know. At my regular bar we might let a guy like McCain get away with a certain amount of this much as we let J.J. and Tom do but we wouldn't take him seriously. The typical response would be "Oh well, that's just John".

The reality is that if a Senator or a CEO wants to cowboy up and act tough there is not much you can do about it in practical terms, but at some point you have to keep the 'All hat and no cattle' line in mind. A 71 year old guy who can't defend his head because torturers broke both of his shoulders decades ago wouldn't last two minutes in an actual bar fight. Some of these modern reporters need to channel their inner Mike Royko.

It's impossible to imagine Chris Shays threatening to personally beat the shit out of anyone. But it would be a lot easier to like him if he did.>

But what did McCain do after the South Carolina primary when the Bush campaign (via surrogates) tried to use his young daughter's ethnic background against him? Did he ask Bush to step outside? Hell, no. He acknowledged Bush as alpha and licked Bush's mouth hoping he would regurgitate some bit of food for him. He wouldn't even defend his own child! Where was the press then? Oh, that's right, they were busy licking Bush's mouth, too.

If John McCain can't comb his own hair, he might want to have a conversation with whoever does that. I seriously doubt we'll ever have a president with a comb-over. Lame but true.

This all seems passive. The question isn't why does the press love McCain. The question is how can we take him down to negatively define him. Your question is reactive. Mines is proactive.

One thing you might want to do is not get in the way of when the negative defining is happening such as with the NY Times story. Your responses thus far has been utterly bad, utterly predictable and utterly Democratic loser mind set.

I love your site. It's great for healthcare information, etc. But, like my abilities with politics, you really should know your strengths and your limitations. Politics, real down dirty, politics isn't one of your strengths.

By the way, maybe part of it is as you say that McCain reps a certain visceralness. I grew up in that visceralness too. So when I read stuff like this by you and others I think to myself "you are the online leaders leading the fight for us out here?" It's all a bit scary because you really need to be more proactive and less where were now and more where you want to be.

akaison, I agree with you, I dare say I think Ezra does too... but I think one also has to realize what we're up against. And I think, actually, that Ezra's falling for the hagiography, not questioning it.

Bruce is right - what McCain offers is the kind of "inner asshole" writers would like to be, but aren't - it's why the blogosphere, really can seem so heated when in real life, we're mostly pleasantly geeky. Talking tough isn't being tough, it's... talking. And McCain, I think, knows how to say things people want to hear... which by the way, is also hardly deep insight: that's what makes a politician effective.

I think McCain is liked because he gives the impression of direct, no bullshit conversation. Where he falls down - and where, I'd note, he's been doing a lot of falling down lately, is when he gets vague, or too political in his comments. His "takedown" of Romney showed this flaw, as Romney repeatedly managed to point out that McCain was "straight talking" something he'd made up, something Romney had never said. And McCain is already showing an interest in doing the same to Obama.

The problem is that McCain's "straight talk" plays to a reporting flaw - not following up on the veracity of direct, declarative remarks to test their accuracy. McCain has, repeatedly, said things that, if examiined, aren't actually accurate. But he rarely gets called on it, and yes, we have to challenge that, hard. But if we fall into this "he's a badass" defense, we're just encouraging myth-making (and myth making from a poor source like Carlson, who's inner badass is especially weak). And that, as akaison notes, is not worth engaging.

Put it this way, that Tucker Carlson passage tells us a little about McCain and a lot about Carlson.

Whether or not McCain would really win the fistfight seems a little beside the point, but if he would make that threat despite his physical handicaps, it speaks to his heroic self-image. I can understand how reporters become star-struck by McCain.

In his recent New Yorker profile of McCain, Ryan Lizza says McCain's need to be around people is almost pathological. He treats reporters warmly, and hardly any (a) war heroes or (b) conservative politicians probably treat them that way.

a) THis new system sucks- I keep losing comments.

b) weboy get's my post right-- If you have something really at stake in this election some of this silliness woldn't even cross your mind. People who are in the middle of a fight are trying to figure 1) whether to run or fight, and 2) if they are going to fight, what's the best way to provide your opponent the beat down he deserves not how scary the enemy looks. That's the comment of a guy about to run from a fight, not one ready to engage in one.

Excellent analysis of our fearful, neurotic press, where high school values reign supreme.

"Please, please, please, like me tough guy!"

If the press isn't impressed by smart, cerebral candidates, then how to explain the collective media worship of Obama?

Is the answer as embarrassingly racial as the press IS impressed by smart, cerebral AA candidates because they aren't AA themselves? Or is there another reason?

McCain's threats to beat up some opponent are just bluff and thunder - ans that is well knownn in DC. He can't raise his arms much above his waist because of damage to his arms/shoulders - I think from his torture in Vietnam.

Makes him sound tough, but its all fluff.

akaison there is a known glitch with captcha. It times out. If you take more than a couple of minutes to compose your comment it won't take. Compose, copy, repaste.

Better watch what you say, your description of Tucker's contacts with McCain may cause the New York Times to write that they are having wild sex with each other....

there's a measure of truth to this, but the overall story is far more complex.

I would add 2 other things.

1) by all accounts the McCain campaign of 2000 was like a rolling zoo for reporters, keeping them well fed, well boozed up with non stop access to the candidate, the kind of access they could only dream of with anyone else.

which reporter wouldn't love THAT?

2) I can't summarize and quote from the book like you do from Carlson's, but Michael Lewis' book "On The Trail" or "Losers", an account of the 1996 GOP primaries is very amusing and a great read, and McCain in the end comes out as one of the book's heroes, even though he wasn't even running.

For a far better and more nuanced take than Carlson's, check out David Foster Wallace's "Up Simba" about McCain 2000 (originally published in a truncated version Rolling Stone, available in an uncut PDF for $4 from Amazon.com) . It's a fantastic essay, one of the best I've read on contemporary politics, and easily worth the price of admission. He makes Ezra's point even more explicitly (if I recall correctly he basically says that MCCain reminds male reporters of the guys who used to beat them up in middle school, and who they looked up to in high school, or something like that), among many other fantastic insights.

As for what happens now--most likely his alpha image will fade as he starts to look more and more like a cranky old man. Especially if Obama is the nominee. If I were Howard Dean, I'd try to get Democrats to start working that word 'cranky' in as early and often as possible--not the actual candidates, of course, but strategists, etc.

Lost in all these comments is the most obvious reason reporters love McCain. He spoke boldly heterogeneous thoughts. Yes, he's no longer doing that, so the press love affair with John is now headed for Reno.

McCain can't have it both ways. He's either the head of a party defined by its extremism, or he's an opponent of that party. McCain will try to re-ignite the old flame, but I doubt he'll be able to deliver the man-love reporters grew used to.

walt--I think you have it backwards. McCain offered a rather small number unorthodox positions, and was subsequently hailed as "boldly heterogeneous" because the press was disposed toward him. Granted, those stances made them like him even more, but if they hadn't liked him to begin with he would have been ignored, or dismissed as 'quirky.'

Had the reporter said, I will do my damn job without any direction from you, that would have ended it. Old men don't start fist fights. Cheered on by cowards, they start wars. I doubt that anyone who got in the face of a fat tough talking nuke Fallujah boy got punched in return. I didn't, and I sought them out.

The press loved him in 2000. It didn't do him much good. Let's not got too nervous this time around.

Adam, what do old men have left but to be "cranky"?

it's either that or jump off a cliff.

If I don't jump off a cliff when the time comes, I look forward to being cranky... yelling at people to get the f off my grass and fun stuff like that.

This post really pegged my "Is he really serious/this has got to be a joke" meter.

1. If "the press is full of smart, cerebral, people" they must all be behind the scenes.

2. Rare instances aside, the media almost never tries to "poke flaws in the argument". They just write down what someone said.

3. One of the major reasons the media likes McCain is because he'll keep the illicit money flowing. Here's an example.

Some reporters saw through Mcain and walked away from him before it was fashionable. Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer's Dick Polman, writing a year and two days ago about his own decision in 2000: "I never rode again, having no desire to be part of McCain’s laugh track."

Full column still worth a look:

http://theonorth.com/2007/02/20/welcome-to-mccains-flip-flop-express/

Dan Tompkins

"""The press isn't impressed by smart, cerebral candidates because the press is full of smart, cerebral, people, who sort of believe they are smarter and more cerebral than the politicians they cover."""

So reporters are smart? then how come they can't get the simple facts right in any story?

The press is full of people who THINK they are smarter then everyone else.

I'd argue that Obama has had the same "guy adulation" advantage with the press too, and this has made the road harder for Clinton.

The media is full of well educated stupid people. That's the real problem with Ezra's formulation.

People of his class think they are just think they are smarter than other people. It helps them justify why hey have things so much better, so they conflate education with actual intelligence. none of them seemed to notice that the kids in college weren't any smarter than the kids in highschool, they were just wealthier.

This reminds me of Tucker a couple of months ago when the Larry Craig story broke...he told the story of a gay man who supposedly came on to him at the urinals in the men's room...he chuckled as he told how he brought a friend back with him and they roughed up the gay man...

What a pathetic little bully man Tucker is!

RALPH NADER IS IN!!!

Yes!

Finally a real progressive; now we can dump the Republicrats.

The press is full of people who THINK they are smarter then everyone else.

And hate to be proved wrong. (See Friedman, Thomas.)

The media is full of well educated stupid people.

Yep.

This isn't true of all sections of the paper, of course. I think science and business beat reporters tend to actually have to know something. Political reporters, on the other hand, seem to be universally dumb.

Who's more enamored of their own intelligence than the Washington press corp?

Their legion of critics, of course. And I would start with Bob Somerby.

Sure, he nails people fair and square on a regular basis, but his rambling vitriol is barely readable and always dripping with self-regard.

And it's not even shadenfreude. For that, you need your perceived rivals to fail. And while the Washington press corps may be exposed to all manner of sniping, they're the ones invited onto private jets for cocktails with the candidate and so on, while Somerby drinks beer from the can in his basement while pecking out his "incomparable" parade of snark.

Journalism is not much different than other professions. People succeed in it for a variety of reasons and, yes, intelligence, honesty and hard work count for a lot.

If the vast army of press critics ever had to file a story themselves, they'd find out right away how ignorant most of their criticism is.

If the vast army of press critics ever had to file a story themselves, they'd find out right away how ignorant most of their criticism is.

Ah, yes, the claim that if they had to deal with the pressures of access and editors and desire to be loved, then the press critics' stories would suck, too. Perhaps so, but then, they still wouldn't be doing their jobs. Seriously, who cares whether the press critics could or could not resist falling to the temptations of laziness and man-crushes on the trail? The point is that the people who work as journalists for a living shouldn't fall victim to such crap, because that's not what the readers are paying for.

Anonymouse says..."If the vast army of press critics ever had to file a story themselves, they'd find out right away how ignorant most of their criticism is."

I can think of at least a dozen "press critics" in the ProgBlogosphere who could do a better job then most of our so called "respectable reporters" (and do so every day)...among them digby, Josh Marshall, Kos, Jane Hamsher, atrios...I could go on but...

Do you really believe the great percentage of the BS we get from Inside the Beltway is in any way hard or good reporting?

If so, you're a deluded a**wipe! Peddle your bullshit elsewhere!

Anonymouse says..."If the vast army of press critics ever had to file a story themselves, they'd find out right away how ignorant most of their criticism is."

I can think of at least a dozen "press critics" in the ProgBlogosphere who could do a better job then most of our so called "respectable reporters" (and do so every day)...among them digby, Josh Marshall, Kos, Jane Hamsher, atrios...I could go on but...

Do you really believe the great percentage of the BS we get from Inside the Beltway is in any way hard or good reporting?

If so, you're a deluded a**wipe! Peddle your bullshit elsewhere!

"If so, you're a deluded a**wipe! Peddle your bullshit elsewhere!"

Ah, the raising of the tone is almost visible.

Back to the point: McCain has obviously something of a halo presented by the treatment he endured and his efforts against the establishment, which provide him with something of a "Narrative", that the press invariably lap up.

The difficulty here is that they focus and invest so much into this, his backstory, that they fail to do their job and report upon what is -new-.

Context is vital, of course, but should never be deemed as of greater importance than the fresh events at play.

Wow, Ezra. Ninety-nine percent of the time I agree with you. But your remote mass-psychoanalysis is pretty Fristian, and a bit creepy, to boot.

REvamp's got it right.

McCain is beloved of reporters because his background provides instant narrative and gravitas. More simply, he's a lot more interesting as a specimen than most of the others, or, at least he's interesting in a way that's easy to tell in three lead sentences or, even, a headline.

Tucker Carlson? He hasn't made his visit to us in the Castro yet. We would like to welcome him!

I think McCain's "straight" talk doesn't really mean "truthful" or "heterosexual."

It's more like McCain's words leap straight from his mind to his lips, unimpeded by filtering or judgment of any kind.

And he legislates the same way. McCain has been described as a loose cannon but he's more like a loose fire hose, flopping around and spraying everywhere.

We liberals, of course, are entertained when he splashes some water on his fellow conservatives, but this is no way to govern.

"he's interesting in a way that's easy to tell in three lead sentences or, even, a headline."

Ma-ver-ick.

That's all it takes. They lap it up.

Yes, McCain's devotion to his first wife's honor is indeed... touching.

McCain–Feingold empowers the press. Enough said.

Tucker Carlson was much better as a writer for Talk.

As for McCain, Jon Meacham was lauding the press treatment on the Straight Talk Express not so long ago. Groupies, groupies.

On the 'fight' thing, sorta makes you wonder about Norman Mailer and HST, who crossed between sports and politics and could probably handle themselves in a fight.

Why would you use Tucker Carlson as an example? He's not a part of "the liberal press". Why does the liberal press like him, thats the question.

The answer is that this love affair started in 2000 when he ran as a moderate against conservative christian George W Bush. Thats when the liberal a press started liking McCain.

Thats why they stiil like him, because he annoys conservatives. As he starts sucking up to conservatives more and more the liberal press will like him less and less.

They also like him because of the access they give him. I dont think the macho stuff has anything at all to do with it.

"I will personally beat the shit out of you."

It would have been nice to have seen Bill Clinton do something like that after Limbaugh's "Chelsea is a dog" stunt.